Malachi Jackson told his mother he was going outside to sit on the patio of their townhouse in Columbia Heights.

       When he didn’t return, she thought her 15-year-old son had gone for a run, as he sometimes did at night, when the streets were quiet.

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       Finally, she walked outside and saw flashing lights of police cars down the street.

       She got to the police tape, where an officer asked her what her son had been wearing. The clothes matched, as did the name of Malachi’s uncle tattooed on his left arm.

       That Monday night she learned that her son, a freshman at Roosevelt High School, had been fatally shot at 13th Street and Columbia Road NW, about 1,000 feet from his front door.

       The 35-year-old mother, who along with other family members spoke on the condition of anonymity because of safety concerns, said her son had a creative mind, excelled in math, played basketball and made music videos. She recalled a son with a “good heart, who was loving and caring,” who “wanted a normal, happy life.”

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       She said she wanted Malachi’s life celebrated. “I don’t want this to be another sad tale," she said.

       But in a city struggling with gun violence, sadness and frustration seem to be all that is left. An assistant police chief made a public plea for tips to find Malachi’s killer, and a deputy mayor called the shooting a “tragedy.” Police have not made an arrest.

       Malachi was the third teen under age 18, and the youngest, to be killed by gunfire this year. Two 16-year-olds were fatally shot in February and in March. A dozen youths were killed last year, 11 in 2020 and 14 in 2019.

       Homicides in the District rose for the fourth consecutive year in 2021, surpassing 200 killings for the first time in nearly two decades. Homicides are down about 8 percent this year.

       Gun violence and carjackings have put crime at the top of residents’ concerns and political priorities. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) is proposing a budget that increases funding for police and calls for additional officers to boost a force that is at its lowest staffing point in two decades.

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       Most D.C. Council members have voiced support for Bowser’s short-term goal of hiring more police but have demurred on her more ambitious plan to increase the size of the 3,500-member force to 4,000.

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       The mayor has proposed the staffing boost despite a recommendation to downsize the department from the Police Reform Commission created by the D.C. Council. And last week, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) and member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) asked the city auditor to analyze police staffing levels, including a look at civilian staffing and how much time officers spend responding to and handling calls.

       The union that represents D.C. police officers fired back with a video blaming those two council members for the recent rise in crime. Mendelson and Allen have countered such assertions, saying solving the root causes of crime will bring down violence in the long run.

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       In a statement announcing the new campaign, the union chairman, Greggory Pemberton, noted Malachi’s killing, saying, "Enough is enough.”

       Columbia Heights has been affected by violence for years, including a series of shootings near the Metro station on 14th Street, two blocks from where Malachi was killed, at the end of 2021 and the start of this year. Eight people were shot, two fatally, over three months in the area — violence police attributed to isolated disputes.

       Police have also noted historic tension between crews in Columbia Heights and in other neighborhoods. One such crew operates at the Columbia Heights Village apartment complex, a half-block from where Malachi was killed, and where six people were shot, one fatally, in an incident in 2019.

       On Wednesday, D.C. police intensified their presence in the area, worried about retaliatory violence. District officials said violence interrupters and others who try to help calm tensions in neighborhoods have been working for many months in Columbia Heights.

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       Malachi’s family said the youth had at times struggled to stay away from neighborhood tensions. The family used to live along Kennedy Street in Brightwood Park, and Malachi was shot twice in the same hand there when he was 12 or 13, his family said.

       They recently moved to Columbia Heights, with his mother, father, a machinist, his 3-year-old sister and 5-year-old brother sharing a townhouse.

       Malachi began attending Roosevelt High. His easygoing nature earned him many friends, but his mother and grandmother said coming from Kennedy Street brought problems.

       He was attacked in a brawl at the school last month, his family said, a brutal fight described by a teacher during a recent D.C. Council hearing and confirmed by a city official. Malachi’s mother said she pulled him out of Roosevelt to home-school him.

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       She said her son “was strong enough admit” when he messed up or was “leaning too wrong,” but she said he was "strong enough to recover and do the right thing.”

       The mother said Malachi resisted efforts by acquaintances to lure him into a worrisome lifestyle, and she fears that might have led to him being shot.

       “He had a bright future and these lunatics and losers could not stand to see that,” his mother said. She said her son had recently been jumped by some of the young men on Columbia Road. She said sometimes her son “had the wrong type of friends.”

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       Malachi’s maternal grandmother said her grandson seemed to enjoy being home-schooled, but she lamented that problems still “caught up with him. He was just living in the wrong area.”

       The mother and grandmother described a close family beset by loss: Malachi’s great-grandmother died of cancer two months ago; his grandfather suffered a fatal heart attack six months ago; his uncle overdosed on drugs and died five years ago.

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       And now Malachi is gone.

       “Every time I see these babies hurt on a street I cry for them," said his grandmother. “They didn’t even have a chance to live a full life. … Why do we have to have guns?”

       The family is planning a memorial for the evening of April 23 at the spot where Malachi died. They want the police chief and the mayor to come. A tentative schedule lists an older man “talking on words of wisdom” and a younger man talking about “young men and guns” as potential speakers.

       There will be a separate funeral for Malachi that his grandmother said she planned to officiate.

       “I never thought I would preach at my grandson’s funeral,” she said. “I’m going to take him back to God.”